Flippant Affections
by Alex the Anachronistic
Summary: Sinistra points her nose down from the stars to see Argus Filch, scrubber of toilets. She freaks. He cries. Mrs. Norris meows. Then, just as suddenly as their relationship ends, he finds a new love. Also cameo appearances by Snape, Umbridge, Irma Pince.


_I'm not just kidding when I say that I'm not J.K._

_Thanks to my beta, _Aindel S. Druida_. You're much appreciated!_

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**Flippant Affections**

Manly tears—manly tears, dammit! — matted the mussed fur of Mrs. Norris. The nippy air whistled through the gap-toothed gasping turret of Hogwarts Castle where the lowly squibbish janitor of said establishment wept.

Mrs. Norris licked her keeper's hand in a rough, half-hearted attempt to console him, though it was clear she was irritated at being outside for so long, so late, and so lonely.

Filch merely continued to blubber. "Yer the only un oo's e'er kepd by me," he mumbled to his aging kitty, who meowed intelligently in reply and directly looked at the open door leading back inside the castle. She also shivered, but Filch envied her mild distress. He himself felt no more fit than to puke. His bum complained of the cold stone floor, and his limbs and nose were quite numb. However, he could not encourage them to move an inch.

It was late November, and Christmas was on its way. _Oh bugger, cheer and goodwill and all that rubbish_. He might have felt festive for the past three years—_the only Happy Christmases of my sodding life—_but they were only happy because of Selene.

Sinistra. Beautiful, sweet Selene Sinistra. Two hours ago, they had been a couple; now, they were not. It was no more complex than that, it was no more unusual than that, and no more avant-garde than that. However, it was no less devastating to him than to anyone else in history.

She had realized, strangely for the first time in their courtship, that she was dating a janitor. They had been sitting by a roaring fire in her room, in what ought to have been a romantic situation. "Oh my God!" she had exclaimed in the middle of massaging his feet. As a frantic appeal came to her eye, she stood, her hands tearing at her fading auburn coiffure, "You clean lavatories for a living!"

"What?" he had asked, looking up from his paper. That had been one other thing she always told him to change about himself, to read more beyond his daily newspaper. He had shrugged it off and never bothered to do anything about it, thinking it a large price to pay timewise—he preferred much more to spend three hours with Selene than reading any amount of literature.

"Your hands are in the toilets every day!" she cried again, more aghast at herself.

"Not in the exact sense of the word, mind," he had said, a mild bit puzzled. He had thought there was something going on with her, but he could not foretell the magnitude of the next eruption.

"Oh Merlin! What have I kissed? What have I touched? What have I degraded myself to? Me, whose mother said I would be the next Rowena Ravenclaw!"

He had passed his tongue over his lips and looked around helplessly, searching for his shoes, hoping that if he left everything would be fine in the morning . . .

"I hate you, Argus Filch. Get out of here, you old cunt!"

_She does read my mind, I swear_, Filch had told himself, the weight of the situation not quite settling in yet. He put down his paper obediently and fingered under the footstool for his boots.

"Get out before I hex you! I never want to see you again!" she shrieked, her voice escalating to points as high and heavenly as her pet favorite star, Adronicus. The only stunning thing about it, however, was that she had never been so vocally extraneous in their entire dual existence.

Filch had obeyed dumbly, pulling his boots halfway on and hopping out the door, scared stiff and trying to figure out what was happening.

It was only when he had escaped up here, to the top of the Astronomy tower itself that he began to comprehend.

He looked up to the stars, and realized that they really had chosen the best tower for studying them. Then his eyes lingered upon the moon, and then they traced the silvery lines they made through the rising mist . . . to end on a plump figure in vivid pink, dragging a black-clad potions master outside to the Whomping Willow.

Argus watched the newest member of the Hogwarts staff, _Miss Umbridge_ he remembered, a member of the Ministry come to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. _What's she doing with Snape down there? _he thought, and a wicked idea came to his mind. He sat and watched them, his nose resting upon the ledge.

Miss Umbridge literally had Snape by the arm, and was yanking him out of the Great Hall with a distinctly businesslike step. The pair stopped in front of an iron bench set in front of a bed of roses, and Filch maliciously grinned, forgetting his tears. Then, however, the woman merely pointed at the rosebushes, and looked expectantly at her unwilling follower. Snape put his hands to his head, in vague imitation of Selene not an hour before, and acted quite exasperated. They were saying things, but Filch was too far away to hear more than whispers he caught on the wind. Finally, Snape turned on his heel, looking livid enough to hex her, and stomped malignantly away from the scene.

However, Miss Umbridge stood, looking slightly depressed after her captive's departure, gazing at the rosebushes. With grudging acceptance, Filch had to admit that she was very pretty. From afar, especially, she might have been a figure from an impressionist painting, her prim exterior apparent but even more accentuated by the slight mussing of her hair by the wind.

She turned, and then Filch saw the glint of light on her cheek in the moonlight. She was crying.

Then his heart melted, as he saw her suffering. _Here she is, 'ated for who she is, jes like me, _he commented inwardly, and in this brief note of commiseration he felt the tenuous desire to approach her, take her in his sinewy arms, and show her that she was wanted, that she was loved.

_Bloody 'ell, I think I'm in love all over again_, he found himself musing.

A motion made him turn his head; a shadow sliced the gleam emitted from the open doorway, and the slender figure of his friend Irma Pince showed itself.

"Argus?" she asked softly. "Are you all right?"

He said nothing, not trusting his voice to keep the secret of his desperation. Mrs. Norris mewed, and Irma rushed over to him.

"You're soaked through with mist!" she chided amiably. "But I heard _her_ rattling at you," she continued on a more serious note, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You wourned me," he said softly, drawing a painful breath. "You wourned me that she'd ne'er be good enough fer me."

"I did, but I couldn't blame you, poor lovesick dog," Irma comforted, putting her arm around him. "I know this is going to be very hard for you. I'm . . . oh, I'm so dreadfully sorry. I knew all along it was just going to end suddenly like this, when she got her head out of the clouds and looked to see who it was at her feet. She's too heady, by half, that bitch, and I'm so sorry that this had to happen to you . . ."

She rambled on with consolations, but Filch felt just fine, better than most times to be frank.

"Pincey, dear, don' worry yerself, I'm jes fine now," he demonstrated, standing up and stooping to gather Mrs. Norris. Irma was surprised.

"You are?"

"Yea." He glanced backwards at him, to make sure that Miss Umbridge was still by the roses. She had seated herself on the bench at this point, and her head was in her hands. "Thank ye, though. I'd like te say that our separation was mutual-like, y'know."

"Really?" Irma was too skeptical by half; that came of being a librarian.

"Yea." That was all he said, and he pecked her on the cheek. "I'm jes fine and dandy."

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